1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus such as a copier, a printer, or a multifunction peripheral (MFP), and more particularly relates to a technology for managing print jobs therein.
2. Description of Related Art
In a conventional image forming apparatus, when a print job containing image data amounting to a plurality of pages is received from a personal computer, the print job in its entirety is sent from a control portion of the image forming apparatus to an engine control portion thereof that controls an engine portion thereof for performing printing, so that the print job is executed on paper under the control of the engine control portion. In order to change the number of pages to be output through a print job that is currently being executed, first the print job is canceled and then a new print job with a changed number of pages to be output is received. In this way, the number of pages to be output is changed.
As a conventional example, JP-A-2004-186784 discloses and proposes an image forming apparatus provided with: display means for displaying operation guides; operation means for accepting operation instructions; page-specification-accepting means for making the display means display operation guides and also for accepting, via the operation means, page-specification instructions that specify a page or pages not to be copied of an original document consisting of a plurality of pages; and copy means for copying the images of the original document excluding the page or pages specified not to be copied by the page specification means when a page-specification instruction is accepted by the page-specification-accepting means.
Accordingly, in the conventional image forming apparatus, in order to change the number of pages to be output through a print job that is currently being executed, first the print job is canceled and then a new print job with a changed number of pages to be output is received, and in this way the number of pages to be output through the print job can be changed.
Furthermore, with the image forming apparatus disclosed in JP-A-2004-186784, when copying an original document consisting of a plurality of pages, it is possible to copy images acquired from the pages thereof other than those specified.
However, in the conventional image forming apparatus, since a print job is sent in its entirety from the control portion to the engine control portion, which then performs printing, it is impossible to change the number of pages to be output through a print job that is currently being executed without canceling the print job. Hence, in order to change the number of pages to be output through a print job that is currently being executed or in order to change the first page to be printed in a print job that is currently being executed to any page posterior to the current first page, the user needs to cancel the print job and then operate such that a new print job with a changed number of pages is transmitted to the apparatus. Thus, disadvantageously, it takes extra time to cancel an existing printing job and transmit a new print job.
Incidentally, the image forming apparatus disclosed in JP-A-2004-186784 involves an invention directed to changing the pages of an original document to copy when it is copied. Here, before images acquired from the original document start to be copied, the pages that do not need to be copied need to be specified.